Non-Ohmic and Oscillatory Behaviors at Strong Electric Field in Tellurium

Temperature dependence of non-ohmic conduction related to acoustoelectric phenomena in tellurium is presented. In the extrinsic region, the threshold field for departure from ohmic law increases as the mobility of holes decreases with raising temperature. In the intrinsic region, however, two types of non-ohmic behaviors are observed depending on the properties of samples: in one group of the samples one more kink appears in a lower field than that corresponding to the kink in the extrinsic region, i.e. , double kinks are observed in the I–V curve, and in the other groups the threshold field corresponding to that of the extrinsic region decreases without another kink. In the intrinsic region a current oscillation is observed, which is due to a high field domain motion travelling from a negative electrode to a positive one. The velocity of the domain motion increases with an applied voltage.